Read Online Between the Bridge and the River by Craig Ferguson - Free Book Online
Authors: Craig Ferguson
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the youngest to the eldest, got a Tootsie Roll lollipop. The kids adored him. Tootsiepop Ted, they called him. A few years later, long after Saul and Leon had gone, he became famous as Atlanta’s most notorious serial killer when his double life was exposed. Every two or three months, depending on the position of the constellation Orion in the night sky, Ted would rape and kill an African-American prostitute and eat her eyes.
Still, he was good with the kids.
High school is tough enough on anyone, an absolute rule of the Universe being that if high school is not a buttockclenchingly awkward, emotionally difficult, and unpleasant time of your life, then the rest of it will be a crushing disappointment. Academic success is desirable, popularity (the only thing that most students really desire) is not. Those who excel socially in high school are truly damned. The home-coming queen does indeed bear the mark of the beast.
The irony is, of course, that this information is generally not available to high-school students, and was certainly unknown to the kids on the orphanage bus. Called The Bastards by the rest of the student body, they were as popular as Jewish tailors in 1930s Hamburg.
There was no way that one of The Bastards could ever be popular. No amount of athletic prowess or street smarts could save you from this leper colony. It was worse than being retarded or having Jehovah’s Witnesses for parents, or even having retarded Jehovah’s Witnesses as parents.
The Bastards took this stoically, they knew their place, so they shuffled from class to class, heads down, eyes averted. Except Leon. Even then Leon knew what he had. He walked with his head up and looked other students in the eye, which got him beaten up a lot but he didn’t care. He had a sense of destiny, he had a great schlong, and The Voice. But he kept his pants and his mouth shut, biding his time. The legendary timing of his father.
Saul, being fat and a Bastard, had the most horrendous time. His misery was compounded by alarming red acne that covered his face every few months. No one ever knew, not Ted, not Saul, not Leon, not Mrs. Wolf, no one, that Saul’s acne attacks always coincided with one of Tootsiepop Ted’s homicides. A coincidence that passed by the whole waking world.
With such a horrible high-school experience, the boys were set for greatness when Leon nearly blew the whole thing.
The Universe came to a fork in the road and for a second it was Saul’s turn to drive.
Saul’s Astronomy Club had been meeting in one of the classrooms off of the senior study hall for three months. The kids in the club were for the most part like Saul, outcasts in one way or another, either hideously disfigured by acne or extremely smelly, or had stutters or embarrassing parents. These were the kids on the outer rim of the high-school universe. The Plutos in the nerd galaxy. As most astronomy clubs are, this one was less about star gazing and more about solace and company for these poor souls who huddled in mutual consolation around high-powered optical equipment.
The Astronomy Club met in the evenings for obvious reasons. On one evening, as Saul was picking at a weeping doubleheader on his cheek and looking at Orion in Taurus through a Pathfinder 40x telescope and Lashanda Brightwell, Ted’s fourth victim, lay cooling in a dumpster behind the International House of Pancakes in Buckhead, Leon was in detention in the senior study hall for failing to complete an essay on the American Civil War.
In a strange twist of fate, Deborah Thornhill and Julie Peters, the two most beautiful, most popular, and most desirable girls in school, had also received detention, for smoking in the girls’ bathrooms. If that weren’t enough, Django Ryerson, the beatnik muso kid who just oozed cool and even had a little soul patch beard, was also in lockdown for saying, “Because no one else gave a shit, man,” when Mr. Hancock asked him why the Hittites had developed the
Still, he was good with the kids.
High school is tough enough on anyone, an absolute rule of the Universe being that if high school is not a buttockclenchingly awkward, emotionally difficult, and unpleasant time of your life, then the rest of it will be a crushing disappointment. Academic success is desirable, popularity (the only thing that most students really desire) is not. Those who excel socially in high school are truly damned. The home-coming queen does indeed bear the mark of the beast.
The irony is, of course, that this information is generally not available to high-school students, and was certainly unknown to the kids on the orphanage bus. Called The Bastards by the rest of the student body, they were as popular as Jewish tailors in 1930s Hamburg.
There was no way that one of The Bastards could ever be popular. No amount of athletic prowess or street smarts could save you from this leper colony. It was worse than being retarded or having Jehovah’s Witnesses for parents, or even having retarded Jehovah’s Witnesses as parents.
The Bastards took this stoically, they knew their place, so they shuffled from class to class, heads down, eyes averted. Except Leon. Even then Leon knew what he had. He walked with his head up and looked other students in the eye, which got him beaten up a lot but he didn’t care. He had a sense of destiny, he had a great schlong, and The Voice. But he kept his pants and his mouth shut, biding his time. The legendary timing of his father.
Saul, being fat and a Bastard, had the most horrendous time. His misery was compounded by alarming red acne that covered his face every few months. No one ever knew, not Ted, not Saul, not Leon, not Mrs. Wolf, no one, that Saul’s acne attacks always coincided with one of Tootsiepop Ted’s homicides. A coincidence that passed by the whole waking world.
With such a horrible high-school experience, the boys were set for greatness when Leon nearly blew the whole thing.
The Universe came to a fork in the road and for a second it was Saul’s turn to drive.
Saul’s Astronomy Club had been meeting in one of the classrooms off of the senior study hall for three months. The kids in the club were for the most part like Saul, outcasts in one way or another, either hideously disfigured by acne or extremely smelly, or had stutters or embarrassing parents. These were the kids on the outer rim of the high-school universe. The Plutos in the nerd galaxy. As most astronomy clubs are, this one was less about star gazing and more about solace and company for these poor souls who huddled in mutual consolation around high-powered optical equipment.
The Astronomy Club met in the evenings for obvious reasons. On one evening, as Saul was picking at a weeping doubleheader on his cheek and looking at Orion in Taurus through a Pathfinder 40x telescope and Lashanda Brightwell, Ted’s fourth victim, lay cooling in a dumpster behind the International House of Pancakes in Buckhead, Leon was in detention in the senior study hall for failing to complete an essay on the American Civil War.
In a strange twist of fate, Deborah Thornhill and Julie Peters, the two most beautiful, most popular, and most desirable girls in school, had also received detention, for smoking in the girls’ bathrooms. If that weren’t enough, Django Ryerson, the beatnik muso kid who just oozed cool and even had a little soul patch beard, was also in lockdown for saying, “Because no one else gave a shit, man,” when Mr. Hancock asked him why the Hittites had developed the
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